


Dust To Dust

by Cinderella1181



Category: British Actor RPF
Genre: F/M, Theatrebatch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 09:33:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3845923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinderella1181/pseuds/Cinderella1181
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vicki has a long line of broken hearts and an ex-husband to prove it. She wants to love Ben, but she can’t becasue of so many terrible circumstances. Well, at least there is the cat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dust To Dust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BeautifullyObsessed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifullyObsessed/gifts).



"And place your hands below your husband's foot: in token of duty, if he please, my hand is ready: May it do him ease." Vicki said casting her eyes down counting the beats before the deep boom of his laugh rang out. 

"Why, there's a good wench, Come on and kiss me Kate!" He said grabbing her, pulling her in to his arms, encircling her and kissing her deeply. The kisses stopped being chaste long ago. The night he had taken her home; she had invited him in. Yes, after that night the kisses had stopped being staged and became real. 

But, it didn't make any sense, the women he dated, lived with, shared his life and sadly his bed with was playing Bianca. Vicki watched him wrap his arm around her every night, give her a glance over his shoulder and leave out the door, the wound in her confused heart grew every time. She wished she knew exactly what was in his mind, in his heart but she didn't. 

He pushed away from her, completed his lines and exited off stage with her, his arm still locked around her waist. It was only a few more seconds and the roar of the crowd was deafening. He smiled down at her as the supporting cast took their places for their final bows. "Only four more performances, and then you'll be done with me." 

"And what a terrible day that will be Ben." Vickie smiled a little at him. 

"Nah, I am sure you'll be glad to be rid of everything that comes with me, I'm constantly stepping on your toes, bruising your side. How many times have I hit you in the head with a prop?" He grinned. 

Before she could reply, he pulled her back on stage, as they began taking their bows. She couldn't help but steal further glances at him, finally linking her hand into his. He smiled and kissed the back of it and after the final bow and the curtain coming down the last time, he pulled her in to the back in to the wings. By this time, everyone in the cast was in that post show euphoria that came with a well rehearsed well received performance. She simply allowed him to lead her around by the hand, feeling the warmth of his palm on hers. 

Viola came over and grabbed him by the sides of the face and kissed him soundly. "You were smashing tonight darling, simply smashing." 

He laughed a little, his hand still threaded in with Vicki. He gave it a little squeeze and pulled her in a little closer to him. "It's not hard to be a good Petruchio when you have such a wonderful Kate to play to share the stage with." He smiled. He looked at her, the smile on his face reached the absolute corners of his eyes. "I have never been so lucky when it comes to female co-stars! She makes it all so simple."

Vicki blushed and pulled her hand away. Viola watched, and something flashed behind her eyes, but she simply smiled sweetly and nodded. "She is a wonderful big sister to my Bianca, I have no complaints at all." 

"You’re both two kind. Really, it's not hard to be a crazy bitch when you are one in real life." Vicki smiled at them. Both of them laughed as Viola moved, placing herself between Ben and her. Vicki stepped away and smoothed her dress down. "I think I am going to change, and go get stage door done before it gets too late."

"That sounds like an excellent plan. Come on Ben, let's go, I'm starving. We can get dinner on the way home." Viola said grasping his hand and tugging him down the hall towards the dressing rooms. 

Ben nodded and followed behind her, but then before he disappeared out of sight, he looked back at her and simply smiled. He wasn't talking to her, he knew it but, he certainly was looking at her, with what in his eyes she wasn't sure. All she knew was that it ripped a hole in her heart. 

She finally made the long trek to the door of her dressing room and began to go through the ritual of getting undressed. She carefully began to pull the pins on her wig and setting it on the head. She then worked on the fasteners on the dress. This was one of her favorite parts of the evening, the part where she got a chance to decompress. She could think about things and she could put a little space between her and Ben. She wanted nothing more than both Ben and Viola to be well gone before she headed from her dressing room. It always made the rest of her night messy when they ran in to each other. But sometimes, that was inevitable, he made sure that they did. She hoped and prayed tonight was not one of those nights. 

Her trepidation grew when there was a knock at her door. “Who is it?”

“Me.” A tiny feminine voice came from the other side.

“Entra-vous” Vicki replied breathing a sigh of relief. 

Ophelia walked in and smiled at her. “You did really fantastic tonight. I am super thrilled for you.” She grinned, flopping herself down on the couch. “How do you think you did?”

“I pay you to say nice things like that Phe, and as for the night, well…” Vicki shrugged a little. “It was one of those magic nights close to the end of the run. I am sad that it is almost the end of the run, I love my job.” 

Ophelia raised her eyebrow at her. “Yes, you pay me to be your dresser, wig master and chief compliment-er, but honestly, you were great. And that kiss at the end there. Yowsza.” She fanned herself. “What’s going on there?”

“Nothing.” Vicki replied maybe a little too quickly. “There is nothing going on there.”

Ophelia raised an eyebrow at her and nodded. “Okay. If you say so.”

“I do say so, so please leave it alone okay. Nothing is ever going to happen so there is no need to even think about it.” Vicki said. 

Ophelia sat up and looked at her. “You are absolutely right that nothing is going to happen, this isn’t going to be like the other times.” 

“Phe…” Vicki started. 

“Oh no, don’t Phe me, no. You are finally making it. You are finally at a place in your career where your name is getting recognized for the amazing actress you are on your own, not the person you are co staring with. You will not go down this road again Virgilia!” She said. “You have an employee now, you realize I write myself a paycheck every two weeks, I get paid, and you sign it! I don’t work for free anymore.”

“You only worked for free because you are my sister and I swear, there is nothing, and I mean nothing going on with him Ophelia Regan.” Vicki said pulling out her full name. “As much as I want something to be going on, it’s not going to happen, it’s just…not going to.” 

“Damn straight it’s not going to Virgilia Imogene!” Ophelia replied back. “And you deserved that one, low shot with the full name.”

Vicki laughed. “Truce on the names?”

“Fine. I just…I don’t think I can handle seeing you go through another Tom or worse another David.” Ophelia said and folded her hands in her lap.

Vicki hissed at her sister. “No! No talkie about the ex! You know the rules!” She said and recoiled back, deeper in to the chair. She sighed and relaxed and rubbed her face. “Nothing is going to happen. Nothing, because he has Viola, and I am not the girl that he wants. Just remember that okay?”

Ophelia got up and walked over to her sitting on her haunches, looking up at her sister and played with the hair that was coming out of the bun that had been tucked up and hidden in her wig, “And really, it’s a shame. You are so much more of a whole then the sum of her parts. He would be lucky to have you. You know that right? Don’t get down on yourself. It’s his loss if he wants to stay with her.”

Vickie reached out and touched her sister’s hair and nodded. “I know. Thank you.”

“Okay, I am going to go and get these things back down stairs and ready for tomorrow. Are you going to be okay getting home? Do you want to wait for me?” Ophelia asked standing up and picking up the wig stand and the discarded dress. 

Vicki shook her head. “No, I am going to go and face the public and go home and cuddle up with Hero.” She smiled.

“Oh yes, that sounds like a terribly lonely plan.” She laughed, heading to the door. Ophelia stopped and looked back at her older sister and smiled a little. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Vicki said, waving her on. 

Ophelia left the room finally leaving Vicki alone with her thoughts. She slowly pulled down her hair, brushing it out. She got dressed, sure that enough time had passed since the end of the show. Ben and Viola surely had gone and taken the largest part of the crowd with them. She would hopefully have very few people, allowing her to simply slip home. 

She left and headed to the stage door, signing out on the back board and smiled at Frank as she did. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She said with a smile.

“Night, young lady.” He replied, waving a little as he did.

She took a deep breath and stepped in the cool autumn London air and was met with a great many more fans then she had hoped to see. They were very soon all calling her name clambering for her and all of her wishes and dreams of it going quickly this evening were out the window. She smiled, promised them she would see them all and started at one end of the line. She spent brief moments with everyone and finally someone asked the question she dreaded to hear. Is Benedict coming out? He and Viola had not been out yet. Damn! This what not what she had wanted to hear. 

“I am sure he will be out any time. Viola Scott will be out then also.” She said and smiled. 

“Oh, we’ve already seen her, she’s gone already.” The fan said and pointed to her little piece of paper. “See, she signed right there.”

“Oh, well, I am sure he will be out any moment then.” She smiled and went on, trying desperately now to get finished before he got out there. She didn’t want to face him, she didn’t want to see him. She couldn’t. She got three more people done before he came out. DAMN! Damn! 

She wanted to just be swallowed up by the ground, wanted to disappear, but clearly that wasn’t going to happen. She was going to be teased by him and how incredibly sexy he looked in his jumper and jeans with the turn ups. God, he was trying to kill her. As he signed for people and took pictures, they began to disappear one by one. The girl that Vicki was standing by asked if she could get a picture with both of them, Somehow Ben heard it, nodded and said just for them to wait, he was on his way. Damn him! Damn him and his kindness!

She made small talk and before long he was standing next to her and smiling. “Now about that picture.” He inserted himself between her and the girl, his arm wrapped tightly around her, pulling her in closer to him. She could hardly breathe, the air caught in her chest, staying there strangled and clawing to be released. He should have let her go when they were done, but instead he stayed just the way he was, a casual arm around her, keeping her close to him. She was drowning in the feelings of joy and despair he was giving to her all at the same moment. 

Why was he doing this to her? What had she done to deserve this kind of sick cruel punishment from him? 

She somehow managed to get through the rest of the fans. How, she wasn’t sure it was a blur. Everything was a blur when he was beside her. Everything seemed to stop. Time, space, her heart. All because of him. 

“Do you want to get a drink?” His deep baritone rumbled in her ear. 

She looked up at him, and before she knew what she was doing, her head nodded. She walked with him, his arm casually slung around her waist. “Viola going to meet us?” Vicki asked. _Good job, bring it back to the girlfriend, that’ll clearly keep your head on straight and not make you think about kissing him._

Ben shrugged. “I don’t know. She and I had a bit of a row, she went home in a tiff.” He said quietly. “I was hoping to give some space between her and I before I came out to do the stage door and lucked out and found you. Someone I would much rather have run into.” 

“Oh, you’re simply being friendly.” She replied, suddenly feeling very sheepish.

“I’m not.” Ben said. “You’re the reason we got in the fight.”

Vicki stopped their forward motion and looked up at him. “Wha…what?”

He nodded. “You heard me.” 

“I did, but it doesn’t mean I quite believe it. What on earth…”Vicki looked up at him, the shadows playing across his face from the streetlamp. “Why would you get in an argument over me with her?”

Ben reached up and pushed her bangs from her eyes, a finger caressed down her cheek. “You really don’t see it do you?”

“I see that you are in love with her.” She said. “I see that I am not much more than an afterthought sometimes for you.” 

He made a noise at her and shook his head. “You’re bright and vibrant. You make me laugh when I am feeling the lowest on my darkest days. You touch me and my soul sings a little. You kiss me every night and say those words to me and yet, those words are what I feel about you…”

“No! Stop!” She said. “Just stop! Why are you saying these things?”

“Because I feel them, I feel this way about you. I look at you and it is like looking into a mirror, into the other half of my heart.” He said simply. 

She could hear from his voice that he was simply stating the truth, and each and every single word cut her like a knife. Why was he saying this? What was the catch in all of this? She stepped in closer to him. She looked at him, studied him in the low light and watched him. “What is the catch in all of this? What is the problem?”

Ben looked at her, the building to their right had a low set of steps that he went and sat on. He rubbed his face and looked up at her, she was sure she saw tears in the dim pale orange light. She stood there unmoving unsure of what terrible catastrophe was coming next. The words that left his mouth were not the ones that she was expecting to hear. “She and I are getting married, she is having my child.”

Vicki felt all of the air leave her body. She wasn’t sure why exactly she felt like this, she wasn’t even in a relationship with this man. She was simply his costar but she felt like she had been hit by a thousand pound weight directly in the center of her chest. She took two small steps back and then began to walk down the road, the frayed pieces of her heart, fraying even more. She was sure she was going to die. She knew she shouldn’t feel like this, this man was nothing to her, she tried to tell herself, to make this all better, she was simply going to go home to the cat and die. This man was in no way the man she had fallen in love with other the last few months. 

“Vicki, please, please don’t walk away.” He called after her and followed using his long legs to catch her. “Please talk to me. Please.”

“What is there to talk about Ben?” She asked and looked at him. “Nothing, your marrying your longtime girlfriend, with whom you are having a child, and I am going to go home and die alone with the cat. There is nothing for us to discuss.”

“Don’t be dramatic.” He said. 

“I’m not, I am simply stating facts. I am just simply telling you what is going to happen. My heart will just continue to shatter in a million pieces and you will go on and be happy. I will go on and maybe get a couple of more cats.” She said and hastily wiped tears from her eyes. “God, I don’t even know why I am reacting like this, it’s not like we were anything more than co-stars to each other. I just, this is ridiculous. I am thrilled for both you and her. You are going to make a smashing husband and a fantastic daddy. I know it.” 

Ben grabbed her up and kissed her soundly, she was sure mostly to shut up her ramblings. She resisted for a half a moment and then settled into his arms and allowed herself simply to be kissed. This was different than onstage. Thus was real, true, and passionate. She wrapped her arms around his neck, threading her fingers into his curls and moaning a little. 

Finally her good sense won out and she pulled away, stepping back as if she had been burned by fire. “What, what are you doing?”

“I had to kiss you, to see if you felt the same way.” He said. 

“You could have asked!” Vicki said her voice raised in ire. “That would have worked just as well!”

“Vicki…”He started. 

“No, Ben no.” She said holding up her hands and taking another step back. Her feet felt like lead weights. What was she thinking running from this? “This, whatever you hope this is, is not going to happen. I can’t, I won’t let it happen. I refuse to be, whatever it is that you want. And trust me, I want you, so badly, but in self-preservation, I can’t do whatever this is.”

“But it is you I want…”He said. 

“Then show me, don’t do what is right for the people around you, do what is right for you, because as much as I want to believe all of this, I just, I can’t, I have been hurt to many times in the past and I won’t be hurt again. I refuse to be hurt again.” She steeled herself. She knew she should be proud, but she was simply dying. 

“How do you expect me to show you?” Ben asked. 

“I don’t know, I just know that I won’t allow myself to get hurt.” She said. “I refuse to.” 

Ben sighed and ran his fingers into his hair, pushing them across his forehead, an action he did a million times a day, and let his shoulders drop. “I won’t leave her, or my child. I am not that man. I was raised to be a gentleman.”

Vicki nodded and stepped in, closing the distance between them. She looked at him and touched his face, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw, memorizing the feel of it. “I know, that is part of what I love about you Benedict. That you are a gentleman. One of the few left in the world.”

He sighed, a small hitch in it at the sound of his full name on her lips, she imagined and pressed his face in to her hands. “If we had only met sooner, we’d be a little less Romeo and Juliet.” 

“I wouldn’t exactly call us star crossed Ben.” She laughed, chocking back a sob. “We are far from two teenagers in love. There has to be a better set of Shakespearean lovers.”

“Let me know if you find a pair.” He said quietly. “There is always Desdemona and Othello…”

“You are killing me.” She said quietly. “Someday, if this, us…if we are meant to be together, we will be, I am a strong believer in fate, I have to be, because if I don’t believe, I’ll die of this broken heart. But, I refuse to be anything more then what we are now. Do you understand that? I have to protect myself, my heart. I can’t be anything more than your friend.” She said the word, wanting nothing more than to vomit because of it. She slowly built the walls around her heart, one stone at a time as they stood there. 

Ben took her hand from his face and kissed it. She could feel the warmth of his lips on the back of her hand, on the cool part of the knuckles. He looked at her and nodded, tears unmistakably glistening in his eyes. “I understand.”

She took her hand from his, turned around and walked away. The steps she took from him, were the hardest steps she had ever taken in her life. She got to the end of the street and stopped, looking back, just before she turned. He simply stood there silhouetted in the light of the lamp. She allowed herself just a split second to watch him before turning the corner and heading home. Once he was out of her sight, the tears finally fell down her face in a cascade. She hoped she had done with right thing, but she would never know. 

She knew that this would never happen, there would never be any she and Ben. He would stay with Viola for the rest of his life. He would go through the motions, they would see each other occasionally, maybe even be in a production together. He would look at her a little too long and her heart would break anew. She knew this even before it happened, because he was going to the one that got away. The one who she would always love. The one she would always want and could never have and she was heartbroken over it. 

Vicki wandered the streets for what seemed like hours. Maybe it was, the colors of the night had certainly shifted by the time that she finally made her way back to her flat. She walked up the steps of her building, unlocking the door and letting herself in. She slowly made her way to the entrance to her tiny modest abode, entering and setting her things down on the table. Vicki hoped that the numbness that she was feeling would go away; that she would be able to shake this now that she was home, safe and finally warm. 

But there was no such luck. She felt herself sink to the floor and begin to cry, the tears streaming down her face. The distant tinkle of bell getting louder as it came closer to her the only thing other than her sobs she was aware of. Hero curled around her brushing up against her and mewling loudly, wondering, she was sure, why she was crying and not feeding her. She gathered the cat up in her arms and held her close to her. The rhythmic purring and cuddled helped stop her tears but only a little. It was then that she was able to speak the words that she had been holding back this entire time. The words that she know once she said she would have to live with for the rest of her life. She scratched Hero behind the ear and said quietly. “I have let the man I love more than any other slip away. And there is nothing I can do about it.” She stood and went into bed, knowing only that the next night would bring more pain.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The One That Got Away](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4673540) by [BeautifullyObsessed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifullyObsessed/pseuds/BeautifullyObsessed)




End file.
